Zachary Lazar talks to Mary Jo Bang about her radical translation of Dante’s Inferno: in an attempt to render the shock Dante caused by writing in conversational Italian rather than the conventional Latin, Bang translated Dante’s text in modern-day English adorned with references to American pop culture. A sample of the text is available online.
A Transformative Translation
More on Myers
Yesterday, I wrote that I “[had] yet to read a comprehensive debunking” of B.R. Myers. For those still interested, I’ve been directed to some candidates: Meghan O’Rourke (2001), Daniel Green (2007), the Washington City Paper (2010, concerning neocon ideology and the shadowy RAND corporation), and part I of Steven Moore‘s The Novel: An Alternative History.
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Making a Place Worth Living
“It is difficult for them to understand why a successful black woman would choose to return to the South and, worse yet, to Mississippi, which looms large in the public’s imagination for its racist depredations, and rightfully so.” For Time magazine’s American South issue Jesmyn Ward writes about her decision to return home to Mississippi.
The Ness Files
It’s a catchy idea: two rich Philadelphians, shut out of their family fortune, decide to gain new wealth by proving the existence of the Loch Ness monster. It’s the plot of At the Water’s Edge, the new book by Water for Elephants author Sara Gruen. Robert J. Wiersema reviewed the book in The Globe and Mail. Sample quote: “In most families, fleeing to Scotland to prove the existence of the Loch Ness monster would seem an odd thing to do in order to expiate a social faux pas and redeem the family honour, but the Hydes aren’t most families.”
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“It was the perfect literary crime”
Amid recent discussion here and elsewhere about what to do about bad reviews, in the Washington Post Chris Bohjalian writes of the time he resisted the temptation to pan a book by the teacher who almost crushed his nascent literary career.
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